


the tension and the terror

by hooksnolan



Category: Brand New, Eisley, Straylight Run, Taking Back Sunday
Genre: Beach Town, F/M, Ice Cream Parlors, M/M, Outer Banks, Summer Romance, gratuitous 90s references, variations on vanilla ice cream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksnolan/pseuds/hooksnolan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summer, 1996: In a last ditch effort to make their final summer before college and “the rest of their lives” one to remember, Jesse and John book a motel on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Adam is just trying to survive his summer job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the tension and the terror

**Author's Note:**

> 14,000+ words and one week later, I finished what I thought would be a quick, fun little thing. Boy was I wrong. I think I had too much fun referencing things from the early 90s. I did not have fun remembering that it was the stone age in 1996. 
> 
> Google searches included: music out in 1996, summer songs 1996, movies out in 1996, movies out in 1995, ice cream flavors, release date of (insert song/album/movie here)

1.

The first thing John notices when he opens the door to their room is that he can’t. The key turns in the lock, so it’s not like they’re at the wrong room or something. The door itself is physically stuck, like the wood warped in the unbearable heat and humidity and got a little too big for the frame. It takes Jesse throwing his body weight into it to open. Overall, it fits the theme of their vacation thus far: their car rattled the entire trip down and the air conditioning threatened to give out at any moment. John’s not sure why he let Jesse talk him into driving all the way down in the car he bought second hand from an old lady who’d gone to their church instead of the one John’s parents gifted him. According to Jesse, it was something about the “experience” of driving in his car. John thinks it smells like cat pee and cigarettes still, even though Jesse swears he’s cleaned it recently. Jesse is full of shit.

This whole vacation was Jesse’s idea. He’s wrapped up in the idea of college being not just a new chapter, but a whole new book. “The rest of our lives, John,” he’s said countless times. So this is one last hurrah before that. Like they’ll never see each other again or something, even though they’re basically brothers at this point, living around the corner from one another and spending holidays at each other’s houses. John’s learned that it’s more or less a waste of time to argue with Jesse. He was raised with way too many siblings; he can outlast just about anybody in an argument.

The motel is exactly what two boys on minimum wage paychecks can afford. Simply said, it’s shit. It smells like smoke and there are probably stains everywhere only visible with a black light. He’s not surprised that the tub looks like it needs a good bleaching and maybe there’s a hair or two in the sink. John’s trying not to think about that, just glad he brought his own pillow and blanket. The only highlight is that they’re mere steps. That’s why they’re there. Even though they live on a literal island and have plenty of beaches to choose from, Jesse said it was about the “experience” of going to a touristy beach town. Jesse is all about experiences and moments lately, and Jones Beach doesn’t count. Jesse discovered Kerouac recently.

After dumping their backpacks on the floor, they exchange their jeans for swim trunks and head out the door. John closes it carefully behind him, locking it and silently praying that Jesse won’t have to force it open with his shoulder again. Jesse wants to find food, and John doesn’t argue with him. They’d gotten an early start that morning, leaving Jesse’s house at the crack of dawn so they could get on the road before everybody else and to the Outer Banks before the sun went down. They barely stopped for anything more than gas and bathroom breaks on the way down, afraid venturing too far off the interstate would get them lost, and neither of them are particularly good at reading maps outside of the route John’s father helped them highlight.

The sun is just setting on the town. There are families still on the beach, catching a postcard worthy sunset. The streets are laced with locally owned restaurants, but they all look too crowded with a mixture of locals and tourists, the tiny town bustling with visitors in the middle of summer. After grabbing hamburgers and fries from the snack shack on the beach, they settle in on a bench to watch the last few serves of a volleyball game.

“So I figure we’ll spend all day on the beach tomorrow,” Jesse says, eyes following a girl as she spikes the ball.

“Well yeah,” John agrees, staring into the distance.

“Maybe we’ll meet some girls. Get your mind off Laura.”

John lets out a noncommittal sound in response. Laura was his girlfriend until about a week ago when she broke it off saying she wanted to keep her options open for the summer and beyond, when John went off to college, even though John’s not going away to school. He and Jesse don’t usually talk about this kind of stuff. John brought it up casually, like “hey Laura dumped me,” and Jesse didn’t prod him for any details. He just flipped the record they’d been listening to and brought up his pipe dream of skipping out on school to join a band and travel across the country again.

Admittedly, John wasn’t all that broken up by Laura dumping him. They’d gotten together sometime in the fall. She was one of Michelle’s friends from cheerleading, and she had no business being interested in a loner like John, but he wasn’t going to question it. He asked her out on a tip from his sister and they made it all the way until after prom. It was a relief not to go stag like Jesse. Though, he’s pretty sure Jesse only went because of him, since he spent most of prom talking about how stupid it was. John doesn’t know how to tell Jesse that he wasn’t too affected by the whole thing without it leading into another conversation that John hasn’t even really had with himself yet.

On the way back to the motel, they spot a small ice cream parlor and stop in. It’s a quaint little place; the decor doesn’t look like it’s changed much from the fifties. It’s not too crowded, just a few families with legs still covered in sand sitting at the tables and eating ice cream. There’s no line at the counter, and John walks up to order a cone but all that comes out of his mouth is “uh.”

“Can I get y’all something?” the boy behind the counter asks, sounding a little bored, and very southern. John likes that, he realizes. He didn’t notice it at check in when the lady handed them their room keys and told them their room number or at the concession stand when the girl handed them their change and told them to have a good night. But standing at the counter in front of this boy, he decides he really likes southern accents.

“Can I get a scoop of rum raisin?” Jesse says, while John definitely looks at the ice cream flavors posted on the board and not at the kid. He can’t help but to steal glances as he scoops Jesse’s ice cream into a cone and rings it up.

“Anything for you?” he asks, looking at John. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere but there. He’s got brown hair sticking out from underneath a baseball cap with the shop’s logo on it. He’s wearing a matching tee shirt that’s stained with different flavors of ice cream. There’s a name tag pinned to his shirt that says “Adam’s favorite flavor is” followed by a blank.

“Uh, vanilla,” John orders, caught off guard from his staring.

“Vanilla,” Adam repeats, looking at him like he’s crazy. “Cup? Cone? How many scoops?” He sounds a little annoyed, picking up an ice cream scoop.

“Cone, one,” John says, digging out the money from his wallet. After he gets his change, he dumps it into the tip cup, earning a little smile from Adam. It’s nice; John likes it.

Luckily, and much to John’s surprise, the door takes no effort to open this time around. They take turns in the shower, using their flip flops like they’re practicing for communal showers in college, and then get ready for bed. John sleeps on top of the covers, wrapped in his blanket. Jesse falls asleep first, and John stares at the ceiling while he listens to his soft snores. He should be asleep right now; they got up so early, but he can’t seem to shut his brain off. He can’t stop thinking about the boy at the ice cream shop. His eyes were an incredibly dark brown. John can’t remember the last time he noticed somebody’s eyes before. He can barely remember what color Laura’s are.

It’s not the first time John’s noticed a boy, and he knows it. He has posters on his wall of The Smiths and players from the ‘86 Mets, and not just because they were his idols or heroes or something. He knows that he finds them attractive in some way, but it’s different with famous people. He never met them, so he never had to think about what it actually meant. John thinks that this is probably the first time he’s ever been attracted to a boy he’s met. He’s not sure what it all means. Like, okay, he finds a boy attractive, but does that mean he’s gay? Not really, right? Because he dated Laura, and who doesn’t find Gwen Stefani hot?

2.

It feels like he’s just fallen asleep when Jesse wakes him, whacking him on the head with what feels like a sack of bricks but turns out to be the motel’s pillow. He lets out a groan and pulls his blanket over his head.

“You can lay on the beach all day, but we’re not spending the entire time in this motel,” Jesse tells him. He tosses his swim trunks at him and heads into the bathroom. John sits up and rubs the sleep from his eyes. He feels like he hardly slept, and he’s no less confused about this whole being attracted to a real guy situation. It’s not even something he can bring up with Jesse. He’s not sure how he’ll react. They both were raised Christian. They don’t know anybody who calls himself bisexual. John’s not sure he wants to be the first.

They set up on the beach a little further back from where the families are near the shoreline. They’ve got a couple bags of chips and a cooler of soda, so they’re all set for the day. John hopes that maybe he can fall asleep to the background noise of seagulls and kids yelling while Jesse scopes out girls. His eyes are set on the game of beach volleyball, like he’s contemplating playing. In his mind, John is practicing how to say “no” if Jesse asks. Neither of them are athletic; they spent a decent amount of high school cutting gym class. He’s not about to play beach volleyball. It’s bad enough he’s on the beach with his pasty white skin and chest exposed.

“She’s cute,” Jesse says, nudging John, disturbing him from his rest. He’s got a pair of sunglasses so John can’t really tell where he’s looking until Jesse actually has the nerve to point. The girl in question is objectively cute. She’s sort of tall and all limbs with her short blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’s spreading out her towel with two other girls who look enough alike that they’re probably sisters.

“Yeah,” John agrees, because he hasn’t quite figured out how to mention that he’s more or less having an existential crisis over the boy in the ice cream shop.

“I’m gonna talk to her,” Jesse says after some time has passed and John just grunts because he was just on the verge of falling asleep again.

John wakes up to sand being kicked at him, and he shades his eyes from the sun to see Jesse standing over him with a girl. It’s not that surprising because despite Jesse’s nerdiness, he’s not bad looking. He doesn’t bother introducing John to her before he says that he and Sherri are going to grab lunch and he’ll meet him back at the room later on. John’s relieved that he found himself a girl and seemed to forget about John.

With Jesse gone, John rolls up the towels and lugs the cooler back to the room before getting changed. He could go back to sleep and be ready for dinner and whatever Jesse might want to do for the rest of the evening, but he finds himself putting on his flip flops and walking down to the ice cream parlor.

It’s packed at the ice cream parlor. There’s a family at every table and kids sitting on the benches outside the shop. There door is propped open and there’s a small line by the register. It gives John a few more moments to order something other than vanilla. And when he looks at the menu board posted along the back, he gets why Adam looked at him like he was crazy when he ordered just vanilla. There’s a long list of flavors that are allegedly made in house, and there are at least five featuring the word “vanilla” in them.

“What can I get you?” Adam asks. He looks a little tired.

“One scoop of...Apple Pie in a cup,” John answers. He’s a little more prepared he’s time around; he chooses one of the first ones on the list instead of vanilla. Adam nods like he thinks it’s a good choice, and John feels good about it. He drops his change in the tip cup, earning another smile from Adam. There’s a part of John that wants to dump the rest of the money from his into the cup just for that.

John finds a seat at the counter, somewhere he can sit and enjoy his ice cream and occasionally steal a glance at Adam. He’s trying hard to be stealthy. He eats the ice cream slowly, so that most of the crowd starts to empty out and the rush slows down. He notices when a girl joins Adam behind the counter, and he coughs on the soupy mixture his ice cream became when Adam starts wiping down the counter right near him.

“Enjoying that?” Adam asks. John looks down at the cup with a few chunks of actual apple pie sitting at the bottom.

“It’s good,” he answers, taking the last bite. “Much better than vanilla.”

“The vanilla bourbon’s pretty good though.”

“Is it?” John asks, not sure what else to say. He’s caught a little off guard by Adam talking to him. He wonders if Adam caught him staring at him for practically the entire time; just the thought embarrasses him a little. He’s caught up now in Adam’s accent and how tall he is when he leans over to wipe down the counter near him.

Tossing the towel in the sink, Adam pulls his hat off and pushes his hair off his forehead. He lets his coworker know he’s going for the day, but not before grabbing a scoop of ice cream and placing it in front of John.

“Try it.” John stares blankly at Adam for a second before taking a new spoon from him. Adam stares back at him until he takes a bite. “Good, huh? So what’s your deal? You just hang around ice cream shops all day watching people work?”

John nearly chokes on the ice cream, which is fantastic for the record. He hadn’t realized that Adam had noticed him watching him all day, and it’s like his worst fear is realized. Adam puts his hat back on backwards and then clears John’s first empty cup.

“My friend met a girl,” he gets out, standing up with his vanilla bourbon ice cream. It’s actually really good. Maybe he’ll have to try some of the other flavors, not that he needs any more of an excuse to hang around. “So I’m killing time.”

“Here for the summer?” Adam asks, walking towards the door. He stares at John like he expects him to follow. “Well, c’mon.”

“Nine days,” John says, following Adam out the door, because what other choice does he have? He can follow Adam or go back to the hotel and sit around for Jesse. And God knows how long Jesse is going to be now that he’s hanging out with Sherri.

“So he’ll be with this girl for nine days and you’ll be working your way through all 51 housemade flavors....?” Adam asks, trailing off like he’s waiting for John to supply him his name. They haven’t even introduced each other yet, and John is already following Adam down the street. They’ve ventured a little further away from the beach, where less of the beachgoers and summer vacationers are, until they stumble upon a diner.

“John,” he supplies, and Adam nods, giving his name in return.

The diner reminds John of the ice cream parlor in that it looks like it was pulled right out of the fifties. There’s checkerboard flooring and accents of chrome everywhere. The booths are covered in a slightly torn vinyl, and when John sits down he sees that some initials have been scratched into the table tops. The radio is playing that damn macarena song that’s been everywhere lowly in the background while Adam looks at his menu. John finds himself staring at Adam again because he has no idea why he’s sitting across the table from him. The waitress comes by and Adam orders his “usual” and John just gets a burger.

“Why were you staring at me?” Adam finally asks, once the menus are cleared away and their cokes are set before him. He wastes no time in trying to figure out John, and John isn’t even sure he knows how to answer.

“We got ice cream last night and you acted like I was weird for getting vanilla,” John says after a minute. Adam looks a little confused, which is probably because he serves ice cream to so many people during the day. “So I came back to try another.”

“51 flavors and you chose vanilla.” Adam shakes his head a little and blows his straw wrapper at John. “Not many people choose vanilla. The kids like whatever is bright, so birthday cake or cookie monster. Adults like things like vanilla bourbon or coffee toffee chocolate chip.”

“Why are we here?” John asks, meaning the diner, but he also wants to know why Adam invited a near stranger out to eat with him.

“The onion rings are fantastic and the food’s cheap.”

“Okay, but why did you invite me?”

“What else were you gonna do? Mope around while your friend sucked face with some girl he just met? That’s how you wanna spend your summer vacation?”

John can’t argue with Adam, because he’s right. He’s not going to spend the rest of the time being a third wheel to Jesse and Sherri, if Jesse even considers asking him to join them. He’d seemingly forgotten about John when they went off for lunch. He doubts Jesse has even gotten back to the room to find John not there yet. They’ll meet up later, but he’s not sure what he’s going to tell him. He couldn’t even explain to himself why he followed Adam to the diner.

The onion rings are fantastic. Adam shares his order with John while he talks. John learns that Adam is spending his summer at the ice cream shop trying to save up to get a car. The town itself is tiny and pretty much all accessible on foot, but Adam wants to go to shows in Charlotte or Carrboro, which he can’t get to on his bike. He’s into bands like Nirvana, like Weezer, and like No Doubt. He tells John his absolute favorite band is Lifetime from New Jersey, and he’s dying to get up to that area to see a show. So he’s basically all ears when John tells him about living on Long Island and seeing shows in New York City, like he goes to all that many. He’s just trying to impress Adam a little, because he doesn’t want Adam to think he’s a third wheel loser who chooses vanilla ice cream.

John pays the bill, even though Adam protests and rolls his eyes a little. It’s not expensive at all - another thing Adam was right about - and when he checks the time he realizes it’s gotten a little late.

“I work tomorrow, but I’ve got the night off if like, Jesse is too busy with Sherri or something,” Adam says. John is a little surprised that Adam wants to hang out again, but he just nods and says he’ll stop by at some point during the day.

3.

Jesse spends most of the next morning filling John in on what he got up to the day before. He spent most of the day with Sherri, walking along the boardwalk, and then he met the sisters she was at the beach with. He convinces John to meet up with them all later, hinting at setting John up with one of them. John’s not stupid. They’re all going to a movie night on the beach, and John agrees because he’s thinking about how he’s meeting up with Adam in a little bit and not really focusing on much of what Jesse’s actually saying. He withholds the information about how he spent the previous afternoon because he knows how weird it would sound if he told Jesse he hung out with the kid from the ice cream parlor over looking at girls with him. Instead, he tells Jesse that he just spent the day on the beach and grabbed a bite to eat at the snack shack again. It feels weird to lie to Jesse, but he doesn’t want to get into it just yet.

Sherri joins them for lunch at the diner Adam took John to the day before. She doodles on the paper placements and tells John about her older sister, probably at Jesse’s request. John learns that they’re on vacation from Texas, that they’re mostly home schooled, and that they’re part of a very tight knit church community. John takes in the way that Jesse never takes his eyes off from her, like he doesn’t know what to do if she’s not talking. Jesse pays for everybody and John leaves a tip on the table.

“Ice cream?” Jesse asks, and John can’t help how fast he says ‘yes,’ and that’s how he finds himself trailing behind Sherri and Jesse as they walk hand in hand to Adam’s ice cream shop.

Adam gives him a scoop of cookie monster, which is blue with chocolate chip cookies, and a scoop of vanilla cappuccino before he even gets a chance to order. He takes the cup and looks down at it, trying to hold back the little smile threatening to creep across his face.

“There’s more than just vanilla,” Adam tells him with a smile before he glances at the clock. “I get off in about fifteen.”

Sherri and Jesse have already claimed a table, and John casts a quick glance at them. “We’re doing that movie thing tonight on the beach. You wanna hang out?” He figures that Adam is sort of interested in him, at least as a friend, if he keeps giving him ice cream and trying to hang out with him.

“I’ll find you,” Adam says, handing John back his money when he tries to pay. John just narrows his eyes and drops it in the tip cup. He won’t let Adam buy him ice cream.

True to his word, Adam finds John at the beach. Jesse and Sherri and her sisters have spread out a couple of beach blankets and there’s food from the snack shack. John’s been standing, keeping an eye out for Adam, when he finally spots him. He looks like he had a chance to take a shower after work; his hair isn’t wrecked from being under a cap all day and he’s wearing jeans with a Nirvana shirt.

“This is Adam,” John says, introducing him to the group at their beach blanket. The girls all smile and wave at him, and Jesse shakes his hand before giving John a confused look.

“I followed John to lunch the other day cause I liked his Smiths shirt,” Adam explains, which might not necessarily be a whole lie. John had been wearing one of his shirts with The Smiths on it. It would at least explain why Adam invited John along to the diner.

“Oh nice,” Jesse says, sitting down and wrapping an arm around Sherri’s waist. John shares a smile with Adam and then sits down with enough room for him next to him.

There’s a respectable amount of space between Adam and John when the movie starts up. It turns out to be Jumanji, which John remembers scaring the crap out of Michelle when it came out last year. Jesse and the girls watch the movie intently, but John can’t help but watch Adam most of the time. He’s also watching the movie, maintaining a safe distance from John. Every so often, he looks over and meets John’s eyes and smiles.

“Wanna grab a snack?” He leans in to whisper before getting onto his feet, and John can’t say no. He nudges Jesse to let him know he’s going and then finds himself following Adam. “Do you have a staring problem?” Adam asks, but he’s smiling. He’s not upset by it at all.

John follows Adam for a little longer before he realizes that they’re not headed in the direction of the snack shack at all. They’ve actually put themselves a good distance away from the crowd. He’s just about to mention this when Adam turns around and kisses him.

John has kissed people before. He kissed Laura, and before that he kissed a girl in his church youth group at the Christmas party (there was mistletoe involved), and there was one of Jesse’s sisters back when he was really young so it doesn’t count. The overall point is that none of the kisses really compare to this one with Adam. Adam is sure about what he’s doing. He’s got his hands on John’s sides, holding him close, and he’s moving his lips against his. John can’t help but to lean into it, hoping it doesn’t end any time soon. He’s glad that Adam led them away from the crowded beach because he’s not sure how he would explain this if Jesse stumbled upon them.

When Adam pulls away, John finds himself chasing him a little bit, wanting to close that distance again.

“I was hoping I was right,” Adam says, slinging an arm around John’s shoulders and leading him off in a new direction.

“Right?” John asks, almost tripping into Adam. He feels a little high and wants to hide away to kiss him some more. He’ll deal with the mental repercussions when he can’t sleep later.

“You know, that you wouldn’t punch me.” Adam looks over at him and smiles again before he separates his body from his, the snack shack coming into view.

After the movie, John says goodbye to Adam, quietly making plans to meet him at the ice cream parlor the next day, while Jesse says goodbye to Sherri. He’s sure that they’ve made plans to meet up too, but John is too focused on the way Adam smiles at him before he walks away.

“He seems cool,” Jesse says on their walk back to the motel, and John just wants the conversation to end there because he’s not ready to tell Jesse that he kissed him. He still has to sort all that out in his own mind. This trip was supposed to be about the two of them having one last great time together before they went off to college, but they’ve managed to spend more time apart, and now John is keeping secrets from him.

“He’s into a lot of the same music,” John answers, keeping it casual. He can’t tell Jesse how Adam’s lips felt and how his body was solid against his, despite the fact that Adam is skin and bones.

“And he scoops ice cream all day.” Jesse just smiles at John and opens the door, kicking off his flip flops and hopping onto his bed. “Sherri’s great. I could go to college in Texas.”

That takes John out of his own mind. Jesse had dated plenty of girls in high school, despite the fact that he went solo to prom. John knows that Jesse can be a little over dramatic, especially when it comes to girls. He’s seen some of the songs he’s written. So overall, it’s not that surprising that Jesse is already contemplating moving halfway across the country for a girl he only met two days ago. He does that sort of thing.

“Really, Jess?” John asks, changing into his pajamas and pulling his blanket over him. “Isn’t that fast?”

“I’m not that set on Albany,” he answers with a shrug. “Maybe there’s a good music scene in Texas. I could start that band. You can come with me.”

John thinks about it for a brief moment. He’s going to school on Long Island; he didn’t have the desire to move out of home as soon as possible like Jesse did. He also doesn’t live with what seems like a dozen siblings. Michelle, for the most part, leaves him alone unless she needs a ride to the mall. There’s nothing about Texas that’s appealing to him, even though Jesse keeps trying to strike up a conversation between him and Sherri’s older sister. But the idea of leaving and going to school somewhere else piques his interest a little bit. There’s the whole anonymity thing that comes along with starting in a new town. He could go off and find himself. Now he’s starting to sound like Jesse.

“I wouldn’t make it in Texas,” John finally says. Jesse’s always thrown around the idea of them being in a band together, and as much as John likes playing music with him, he can’t imagine doing it as a career. They both play guitar, and they don’t have anybody else to be in a band with them.

“Nah, cause you suck,” Jesse teases. He reaches over to shut off the light before saying goodnight, leaving John alone with his own thoughts.

And he has a lot of thoughts. They all keep circling back to Adam kissing him. He’s barely come to terms with the fact that there’s an actual guy he knows and finds attractive, not just some kind of celebrity, and less than two days after that, he kisses him. He keeps replaying over and over in his mind the way Adam leaned into him, the way Adam’s lips felt against his, the way Adam smiled when he pulled away.

4.

John spends the next morning on the beach, playing a terrible game of beach volleyball with Jesse, Sherri, and her sisters. The other team is comprised of some teens on a day trip to the beach from inland North Carolina. It’s pretty fun, even though nobody on John’s team is anywhere near athletic. They have more fun talking shit on the other team and making fun of each other. Afterwards, they hit up a Mexican place for tacos before John makes his exit.

Unsurprisingly, he heads over to the ice cream parlor. Adam’s there with his cap and work shirt, scooping out ice cream for a line of people. John quietly takes a seat at the far end of the counter and tries to read the menu for a bit before he loses himself completely in watching Adam. He’s friendly with the customers, scooping out ice cream quickly and getting them on their way so nobody is waiting too long. By the time Adam finally looks over and notices John, the line has dwindled significantly.

“What can I get you today, sir?” Adam asks, wielding a scooper and smiling at him.

“What’s your favorite flavor?” John asks, noting that Adam’s name tag still doesn’t list his favorite. “You pick for me.”

“I gave you cookie monster the other day, didn’t I? That’s up there.” Adam looks at the buckets of ice cream in the freezer before him, like he’s contemplating what his favorite might be.

“What’s this?” John asks when Adam hands John a cup with two scoops in it. Adam refuses John’s money, like he has the authority to give John free ice cream. He resolves to put the money in the tip jar, in case all this ice cream comes out of his paycheck.

“Vanilla caramel fudge and mocha almond fudge.” Adam drops the scooper in a vat of soapy water and then starts to wipe down the sticky ice cream remnants from the counter. “So, my dad’s taking my little brother to the zoo today, if you wanna come over. I don’t know if you and Jesse are doing anything though.”

John and Jesse have no plans. They haven’t made any solid plans to hang out since they got to the beach. Jesse is too distracted with Sherri, and John has been spending most of his time at an ice cream parlor watching Adam work. The idea of spending an afternoon at Adam’s house is heavy with possibility; he’s implying that nobody will be home, and John would be an idiot to pass up that opportunity. Vacation is moving at an alarmingly fast pace, and he doesn’t want to miss out on anything. It’s not going to be like this once he’s back home where people know him.

After Adam’s shift is over, he and John make the quick walk back to Adam’s house. It’s a small beach cottage, with a little kid bike in the front yard and a more Adam-sized one leaning against the side of the house. Adam unlocks the front door and kicks off his sneakers. There are pictures of Adam and his younger brother on the wall. It’s light and airy, and Adam offers him a drink from the kitchen. John uses the phone to call the hotel room and leave a message for Jesse, in case he goes back there looking for him. He leaves out the details, just says he’s hanging out with Adam and probably won’t be around for dinner.

Adam leads him to his bedroom, which has dirty clothes strewn about. The walls are covered in posters of all the bands Adam mentioned liking. He has stacks of CDs littering his dressers, and his bed is unmade. He pulls off his work tee shirt, and John can’t help but to stare at his chest. Adam is relatively broad and skinny, tanner than John from growing up in a beach town his whole life, and John is into it. He finds a shirt that might be clean from a pile on the floor and puts it on before flopping onto his bed.

“Put some music on,” Adam says, gesturing to his CDs. John flips through a couple before settling on the Modest Mouse album. It’s fairly mellow music compared to the rest of Adam’s collection.

John sits on the bed next to Adam, but it’s not long before Adam’s pulling him down so he can kiss him. It’s just as good as the night before. It’s better than the night before. It’s not as tentative. John fingers get tangled in Adam’s hair, a hand slipping under his tee shirt. Adam’s got a grip on his shoulder, holding him close like he’s afraid John might slip away.

“I’ve never,” John starts, about to tell Adam that he’s never kissed a guy before, because for some reason he can’t just enjoy it. Adam cuts him off with another kiss though, with his fingers pulling up the hem of his tee shirt. John doesn’t know how Adam is so sure of himself. He’s moving with such confidence, like he knows what he’s doing, and the closest John’s ever gotten to this was fooling around with Laura in the backseat of his car. (For the record, fooling around in a car is significantly less comfortable than being sprawled out on Adam’s bed.)

Luckily, Adam doesn’t seem to notice that John was about to say something because he keeps kissing him. He’s tugging John’s shirt up and over his head, and John finally relaxes himself enough to lose himself in the feeling of Adam’s body pressed against his. For once, his brain has stopped thinking about what this all might mean.

5.

When John wakes up, it’s raining. That ruins the plans he and Jesse had loosely made to hang out on the beach all day. Jesse caught him off guard when he got in the previous night, pointing out that they hadn’t been spending much time together, that John was always running off. John was still on cloud 9 and didn't bother to argue that Jesse’s been too busy with Sherri to hang out with him. He knows eventually he has to tell Jesse something, but he’s trying to put it off for as long as possible. He wouldn’t know where to begin. _So, I’ve kissed Adam…_ or _Adam’s pretty cute, isn’t he?_ It doesn’t matter how it starts; it all leads into a conversation he’s too nervous to have.

The rain doesn’t halt their plans to hang out though. They find a theatre in town and settle in for a movie, something to do with aliens and Will Smith. John’s not really interested, but he knows Adam is probably working the afternoon shift at the ice cream parlor so he’s not really missing out on anything. He feels a little guilty that his mind keeps drifting over to what Adam’s up to when he’s spending time with his best friend.

“So what's the deal with you and Adam?” Jesse asks at lunch. John nearly chokes on his onion ring because he doesn't know what Jesse is implying. “You guys don't hang out with us.”

“You and Sherri don’t hang out with us,” John counters once he regains his composure.

“I invite you out. We hang out with her sisters all the time,” Jesse says.

“You’re trying to set me up with one!” Jesse smirks and throws an onion ring at John’s head.

“She’s cute! Why not? Are you still hung up on Laura?”

“No!” John answers quickly. He’s getting a little frustrated that Jesse is so insistent on finding him a girl. “I mean, yeah she’s cute. But I’m not hung up on Laura.”

“Then what’s the deal? What, are you gay?”

John feels the color actually leave his face. He’s glad he didn’t have food in his mouth because he’s positive he would’ve choked on it. He feels physically numb, like his body has been paralyzed. Part of him is yelling to bolt out the door. The other part wants to slide down the booth and become one with the floor. He wants his death to be quick and painless. He wasn’t ready to have this conversation, and he wasn’t expecting Jesse to bring it up. Admittedly spending all of his time with Adam wasn’t exactly being smooth, but he didn’t think Jesse would get from point A to point C like that.

“I uh, I was joking,” Jesse says, and there’s concern all over his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” John says way too quickly. He fidgets uncomfortably in his seat, playing with the straw in his coke. Jesse is staring at him. “I mean. I’m not gay. I like girls. I liked Laura a lot.” He just felt like there was so much pressure with Laura. He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing with her. With Adam, everything comes so naturally. He instinctively knows how to lean in just right to kiss him, how to touch him.

“I didn’t mean you were. Sorry.” Jesse is looking at him intensely still, and John knows he has to tell him. There’s no avoiding it any more. He feels like his heart is in his throat and his stomach won’t settle.

“I’ve kissed Adam,” he finally says. He doesn’t feel any different for having said it. He’s still nervous as hell. He's paralyzed, waiting for Jesse’s reaction.

“What?” Jess blinks once, then twice. The silence seems to drag on forever. “Wait, really?” John’s voice is stuck in his throat, and he just looks at Jesse like a deer caught in headlights.

John wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he's a little shocked when Jesse gets up and leaves the diner.

It’s still raining by the time John manages to collect himself and pay for the half eaten food on the table. The waitress had come over to check on him a few times, probably noticing Jesse’s sudden absence and John’s inability to eat anything after that. It takes him fifteen minutes from the time Jesse left to when he finally steps out the door, and he’s not sure if he should be surprised when he doesn’t see Jesse’s car in the parking lot. It seems like it’s just his luck that he’d have to walk back to the motel in the rain.

Unsurprisingly, John’s feet don’t take him back to the motel. He’s not quite sure if he wants to face Jesse just yet. He’s still processing his reaction; Jesse hadn’t seemed all that mad, but he did get up without a word.

The door to the ice cream parlor is shut for once, the bell overhead chiming as he pushes it open. The rain must be keeping the vacationers away because it’s relatively empty. Adam is sitting behind the register, and he looks up when John walks in, smiling a little. He automatically goes to scoop ice cream into a cup, and he has it in front of John by the time he reaches the counter.

“Cherry vanilla,” Adam says, before John even has the chance to ask. All John can manage is a tight smile in return. He’s not in the mood for ice cream at the moment. Adam must sense it, because his face rearranges itself into one of concern. “You okay? You look a little like a drowned rat.”

“Jesse and I,” John begins, but he doesn’t know how to finish it. They didn’t really have a fight. Jesse didn’t really say anything to him. His face had been completely unreadable when he got up and left the diner. “I told Jesse.”

Adam looks around the ice cream shop, a look of ‘oh shit’ on his face, before yelling into the back that he’s taking a break. He takes his cap off and then joins John on the other side of the counter as a girl comes out from back to watch the register. He doesn’t touch him, just nudges his foot against his ankle.

“Guess he freaked out,” Adam says, and John just nods.

“He got up and left.” His reaction - or lack thereof - was the most surprising part for John. All his life, Jesse has always been sort of overdramatic. John’s always been the more level headed of the duo. It’s almost alarming that Jesse didn’t make a scene at the diner. He can remember how Jesse had locked himself in his room for days after his first girlfriend dumped him. “So I came here.”

“You can come over. I get off in about two hours. We’ll get you dry.” Adam gives John a sly smirk and squeezes his shoulder before he steals his ice cream. John can feel his face warm up, so he can only imagine he’s gone a little red.

Going back to Adam’s house is so appealing. He really felt at home yesterday, sprawled out on Adam’s bed, listening to music, their hands all over each other. He steals the spoon back, just to try the cherry vanilla. He feels a little better after sitting here with Adam. His trip is half over, and with all the Jesse stuff aside, it’s been pretty good. He’s learned a lot about himself, which is surprising, considering he’d written Jesse’s whole “experience” thing off as bullshit.

Adam’s dad and brother are home when they get there, and Adam wastes no time in introducing John to them and then shuffling him along. As Adam shuts and locks the door, John thinks about giving Jesse a call at the motel, but then he realizes there’s no guarantee that Jesse is even there. He probably disappeared with Sherri somewhere. Maybe he’s telling her about John and Adam. At least she can tell her sister that there’s nothing wrong with her and something wrong with John.

“Here,” Adam says, pulling John out of his thoughts. He hands him a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt. “You’ll catch a chill.”

John wants to make a snarky comment about it being a terrible line to get into his pants, but his clothes have already started to dry on him, and it’s pretty uncomfortable. Nirvana starts playing in the background as John kicks off his shorts. He’s not oblivious to the way Adam is watching him; though they’d gotten pretty handsy yesterday, they’d remained mostly clothed.

“Wait,” Adam says, closing the distance between them and pulling the sweatpants out of John’s hands. He yanks the shirt up and off his body, and John is just standing there in boxers. A part of him realizes maybe he should be a little self conscious, since Adam is completely clothed, but it’s quickly silenced by Adam’s hands on his bare skin. They’re cold, and shivers shoot up John’s spine, but he just leans into it. His own hands find the hem of Adam’s work shirt and start pulling it up.

It doesn’t take long until Adam is equally undressed and they’ve moved to the bed. Adam’s mouth is on John’s neck, and he can’t help the sound that escapes his lips. His fingers dig into Adam’s hips. Now that Jesse knows he’s kissed Adam, he’s not too concerned about showing up with a hickey. At least he won’t have to explain it.

“Sh,” Adam says against his skin, “my dad.” The mention of Adam’s dad doesn’t affect him that much. He’s positive he won’t be able to hear them over how loud Adam has Nevermind playing, and he can’t help the way his body is reacting to Adam pressed up against him like this, to Adam’s mouth on his skin.

6.

John wakes up in Adam’s bed. He’s naked except for his boxers around his thighs, and Adam is pressed against him, equally naked. He catches the time on the clock and realizes it’s about 4 in the morning. The night comes rushing back to him -- it’s a mess of hands and skin, panting and moaning into each other’s mouths. He nudges against Adam gently.

“Wha?” Adam asks, half asleep. He wraps an arm tighter around John’s middle and practically burrows his face into his chest.

“It’s 4 in the morning,” John mumbles. He doesn’t want to leave, but he also wants to get back to the motel. He has no idea if Jesse’s been looking for him, if he’s even worried about him.

“Fuck,” Adam says, and then he’s getting up. He flicks the light on and then finds the sweatpants and shirt he was going to lend John the day before. They land on the bed next to John, and Adam opens his dresser. John lays there while he watches Adam get dressed. When Adam turns around, he tries to hide his smile by getting dressed hurriedly.

John hasn’t been up this early since he got to North Carolina -- he’s not sure he’s ever been up before the sunrise unless he hadn’t slept the night before. There’s a surprising stillness when they leave the house, Adam being careful to shut the door quietly behind him. With the sun not up yet, the air is cool. Adam doesn’t shy away from grabbing John’s hand.

“So,” he says, dragging it out. John turns to look at him, and he notices that Adam’s staring at the ground while he walks. “I’ve never done that before.”

John’s quiet for a moment, not sure how to react. Obviously he could tell Adam that he’d never done that with a guy before either, that they’re in the same boat. But he’s a little thrown by it. Adam had initiated a lot of it. He definitely had expected him to have experience with this sort of thing. John realizes that apart from pretty basic information, he doesn’t know much about Adam.

“Me either,” he finally tells him. Adam stops and stares at him for a moment before he changes course, and they’re headed for the beach and not the strip of motels in front of it.

There’s nobody on the beach at 4:30 in the morning. The ocean is surprisingly calm and the sand surprisingly cool as John and Adam sit down. John’s grateful that Adam had lent him his sweatpants, but he shivers a little and Adam leans into him a little closer.

“I’m sort of a loner,” Adam begins quietly. His fingers are still intertwined with John’s as they sit there.

John listens carefully as Adam tells him about his parents getting divorced a few years back, and how he, his dad, and his younger brother moved up here where his dad works on boats. It was hard for Adam to make friends as a new kid in a tight knit community. The residential community was apparently a little stuck up, a little wary of newcomers. Some of them see the seasonal vacationers as a nuisance: the increase in people brings about more traffic and everything gets crowded. It disturbs the flow. Adam explains his “summer friends,” the kids he’d meet on the beach around his age that he’d hang out with until they packed up and left.

“I go to a Christian high school,” John says. “My dad was a pastor when I was a kid. Up until recently, I was only allowed to listen to Christian rock.” Adam laughs at that, and John is glad he could lighten the mood a little bit, even if he was being completely serious. “I met Jesse my freshman year. I had a terrible mullet.”

“You’re fucking with me.” Adam squeezes against John’s hand, and John swears he’s being serious. “Well, there’s no boys that wanna fool around in North Carolina.”

“You can come visit when you get your car.” It’s the first time either of them have mentioned that John isn’t going to be around forever, though John figures Adam has always considered him a summer friend, especially with the way he never held back flirting with him. What did Adam have to lose? If John wasn’t interested, he’d never see him again.

“The sun’s gonna rise soon,” Adam says, by way of changing the topic. He looks out to the ocean and John doesn’t say another word. He doesn’t know what he was expecting by suggesting that Adam visit him sometime. Adam’s used to people leaving him at the end of summer and not coming back. Maybe that's what Adam wants.

They sit quietly like that, hand in hand, while the sun rises. The beach starts to see a little more activity; a couple early morning joggers, the lifeguards with early shifts, fishermen. Adam untangles his fingers from John’s and stands up.

“I should get back before my dad leaves for work,” he tells him.

“My room’s just that way.” John gestures to a buttery yellow building. He stifles a yawn and then smiles at Adam.

“Get some rest,” Adam tells him, jamming his fists in his hoodie pockets. He smiles back before he turns, and John watches him walk up the beach.

The light is on back at the room. Jesse is sitting up against the headboard with the phone pulled onto the bed next to him, but he’s asleep. There’s drool hanging off his bottom lip, and John thinks briefly about waking him up, but he doesn’t. He just kicks his shoes off by his pile of dirty clothes and turns the light out. He’s asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.

“You fucking asshole,” Jesse yells. John barely blinks his eyes open before Jesse throws a shoe at him. “Where the fuck were you?”

It takes John a second to fully wake up. He’s a little disoriented; he barely remembers getting back to the room a few hours ago. It’s 10 am, according to the clock. He lets out a groan.

“Adam’s,” he answers, because he’s barely processed the ridiculousness of the situation. Jesse is mad at him for being out all night? Jesse, who left the diner without a word and stranded him there?

“Is he your boyfriend or something?” Jesse asks. John blinks a few more times and registers that Jesse is standing over him. His hand feels around for his glasses, and once he puts them on he can make out the anger on Jesse's face. This is more along the lines of what John had been expecting yesterday.

“Is Sherri your girlfriend?” John counters. He’s too exhausted to really have a fight with Jesse about his sexuality.

“It's different,” Jesse says.

“How?” He thinks he knows how it's different, and it boils down to genitalia. For John, that’s not a difference at all. He's tired, but he realizes there's no way out of this conversation now. He can't just roll over and go back to sleep and hope Jesse wakes up in a better mood, so he sits up and stares at Jesse, challenging him to explain it.

“You never told me you were gay.”

“I'm not!” John's not gay. He definitely like girls. He just also likes dudes. “I'm bi!”

“I'm your best friend, John. You can tell me things like that.”

This is on par with what John had expected from Jesse. It's a little too dramatic. Somehow, he has made this whole John coming out thing about him. It's about his feelings being hurt. It's very typical of Jesse, and for a moment it feels like the planets are starting to slip back into alignment. A wave of relief washes over John. He’s nearly positive Jesse will get over this and things’ll go back to normal. He doesn’t have to worry about coming home from this trip without a best friend.

“I didn't really know,” John tries to explain. He wants Jesse to get that it's not a personal thing, that he wasn't trying to keep secrets from him. “Didn't really figure it out myself ‘til he kissed me.”

“You could’ve told me,” Jesse repeats, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Best friends, you know.” John lets out a sigh because he knows at this point it’s not worth arguing with him. Jesse thinks he’s justified in being hurt, and John knows nothing he says will change that.

Jesse proceeds to grill John. Mostly, John reiterates his bisexuality again and again when Jesse calls him gay. He doesn’t think kissing Adam negates the way he feels about girls too, like he can only be one or the other, depending on which one he’s kissing at the present moment. It’s more complex than that, and he’s not sure trying to explain it to Jesse with only a few hours of sleep under his belt is going to actually work.

“I wanna meet him,” he finally says. He must be satisfied with John’s answers because he drops the subject. Once John reassures him that he is still his best friend and promises to never withhold information from him again, things seem to click back into place.

“You’ve met him.”

“Briefly. At a movie night,” Jesse counters. John doesn’t put up much of a fight because honestly, he wants to see Adam for himself. He has no way to prepare Adam that they’re coming. He still hasn’t managed to grab his phone number, and he makes a mental reminder to do that definitely. He even brings the motel’s notepad and pen with him.

John doesn’t see Adam behind the counter. There’s an older man there, and he looks frazzled. With the exception of shift changes, John's never actually seen somebody other than Adam working at the counter, even though logically he knows there has to be other employees. A knot forms quickly in John’s stomach, and he starts to replay everything that happened in the early morning. Did Adam mention not having work? Is he skipping out on work to avoid John? It’s amazing how quickly the thoughts and conclusions form in his mind. It’s so dramatic; he’s been friends with Jesse for far too long.

“Is Adam here?” John actually has the nerve to ask the man behind the counter. He’d waited patiently until it was his turn to order before he asked, thinking maybe Adam had been in the back for a second or he was working the later shift. At Adam’s name, the man frowns.

“He didn’t show up. Can I get you anything?” His words are clipped, but it’s understandable. The line stretches out the door in the mid-afternoon heat. This man probably doesn’t usually handle the counter, but he has to pick up Adam’s slack.

John orders just vanilla and tries to hide the disappointment he feels. He and Jesse sit out on a bench in front of the ice cream parlor, and Jesse, for all his dramatics, seems to know that John doesn’t want to talk about it.

“We could go to a bar tonight,” Jesse suggests. It’s not outside the realm of possibility. Nearly everybody on Long Island had a fake; there wasn’t much to do there besides sneak into bars unless a show was happening at one of the VFW halls. “Or I saw a Hooters the other day. ...Wait, does Hooters do it for you?”

“Bisexual,” John says for what feels like the hundredth time that afternoon alone. He knows Jesse is only trying to lighten the mood, and he should appreciate it. He should appreciate that Jesse recovered from his little fit so quickly this morning. Sometimes there’s no telling with him.

John doesn’t put up a fight, just agrees, and they wind up at a bar after dinner. He’d spent the rest of the afternoon at the motel, trying to catch up on his sleep while Jesse went out a little bit with Sherri. She’s leaving the next evening, and John knows Jesse’s doing him a solid by sacrificing her last night to hang out with him. He’d told Jesse to invite her, but apparently Jesse’s mission to help John get over Laura has shifted course and is now about helping John get over Adam.

John can’t believe he and Jesse are standing in a bar while Jesse tries to point out suitable guys for him.

For the record, Jesse has terrible taste in men.

“I doubt I’m gonna find a dude to hook up with in North Carolina,” John tells him. He had gotten pretty lucky with Adam. He doesn’t want to be cliche but he’d been starting to think that it was something like fate bringing them together. Lightning doesn’t strike twice, they say.

“You’re ruining all my fun, Nolan,” Jesse says.

7.

When Jesse leaves in the morning to see Sherri before she leaves (he’d told John he was gonna get her home number and address, maybe they’d work something out; he’d mentioned again going to school in Texas), John gets ready. It’s too early for Adam to be at the ice cream parlor, and he knows it. Instead, he bypasses it on the way to Adam’s house. He’s only been there twice, but he’d been so amused by the beachy street names that he remembers the way there. The peeling last name on the mailbox confirms that John’s at the right house.

It’s mid-morning when John knocks on the door. He can hear people on the other side. Adam’s younger brother shouts about the door, and it’s only a few moments before the blue wooden door opens.

A screen door separates John from Adam, who looks unbelievably cute in a pair of pajama pants and oversized tee shirt. John wants to touch him again, his mind replaying waking up next to Adam, the way he’d practically clung to him.

“You didn’t show up to work yesterday,” is the first thing out of John’s mouth. He’d wanted to ask Adam if they were okay, if he’d just planned on avoiding him until John’s trip was over. Instead, he made it sound like he was stalking him.

“I overslept,” Adam explains. And it’s a perfectly fair explanation. If Jesse hadn’t woken him up with his shouting and his shoe, he would have slept through most of the afternoon. John’s probably just overdramatized everything in his head. He really needs to hang out with people other than Jesse.

“Can I come in?” John doesn’t want to talk to Adam through a screen. Yesterday morning on the beach he’d felt so close to him. Now there’s a literal door between them.

“John.” Maybe he wasn’t imagining all of that then. “You’re just going to leave.”

“Please?”

Adam lets out a sigh and then unlocks the screen door. He leads John into the living room, where there’s a mess of legos and matchbox cars and pogs all over the floor. Adam’s brother is sitting in the middle of the destruction, pulling the string on a Woody doll, laughing every time it circles back to “there’s a snake in my boot.” Unsurprisingly, Toy Story is playing on the TV.

Adam’s brother is completely absorbed in the movie by the time the doll head on the claw-like body appears. John remembers that part terrifying his cousin. It’s like Adam and John don’t exist where they sit on the couch. John wants to sit close to Adam, but he’d made himself impossibly small in the corner of the couch.

“Everybody leaves. That’s the problem with this place,” Adam says by way of explaining his earlier comment. “And I’m stuck here. You’re leaving too. Soon enough.”

“So?” Maybe John’s been listening to Jesse for far too long. He’s already thinking about future vacations down to North Carolina, about inviting Adam up for weekends to New York.

“I forgot.” Adam stands up quickly, not meeting John’s eyes. There’s a subject change. “Do you want a drink?”

The kitchen is just on the other side of the open room, and Adam busies himself with getting cups and pouring iced tea and finding goldfish crackers for his brother. John watches him the entire time. He doesn’t say anything but thank you when Adam hands him a glass. He’s waiting for Adam to elaborate or clue him in on what’s going on in his head.

“You’re gonna go to college in the fall and forget about me anyway. You’ll say you’ll write me letters or call, and maybe you will, but eventually you’ll stop. I know how this goes.” And it’s true, John figures. Adam had mentioned that a lot of his friends growing up had always been temporary.

“Don’t you think it’s different?” John says. John thinks it’s different. He and Adam had something. It sounds sickeningly cheesy in his head, so he doesn’t dare breathe a word of it out loud. But he thinks that maybe the fact that they’ve sort of had sex makes it a little different.

“I want it to be,” Adam says softly. He’s not looking at John. His eyes are trained on Buzz, who thinks he’s Mrs. Nesbit.

“So it will be.” John makes up his mind right then and there. He’ll write to Adam. He’ll call him and pay the long distance charges. “You’ll get your car. You’ll come up for shows. I’ll take you to see Lifetime.”

Adam tries unsuccessfully to fight the smile on his face. “Yeah, okay.”

The rest of the movie is spent with a respectable distance still between them. Adam’s brother gets bored by the time Woody and the mismatched toys stage their uprising in Sid’s backyard, and he starts playing with legos. John’s still focused on the movie because it’s something other than Adam. He wants nothing more than to stare at him, but he’s afraid it’ll lead into touching him and something more.

“Stay for lunch?” Adam asks, after the movie ends and his brother starts asking him for mac and cheese. John can’t say no. He thinks it’s a problem, that Adam will have him wrapped around his finger in no time, if he doesn’t already. He already foresees plenty of trips to North Carolina in the future.

By the time Adam’s dad gets home, they’ve already played with legos and raced matchbox cars around the house with his brother. John’s rehashed his conversation with Jesse; he even mentioned how Jesse was trying to find him a guy to hook up with. That earns him an elbow in the stomach from Adam. Adam’s brother is practically asleep on the couch, distracted by the bright colors and songs of the Lion King, by the time Adam’s dad comes home and absolves him of babysitting duties.

Adam has work, and John had promised Jesse he’d let him have the room for a little bit, so he follows him. He’s not sure when it’ll be safe to go back to the room, and spending the evening at the counter while Adam works is much more appealing. He likes watching Adam work; he’s not ashamed to admit that he stares when Adam bends over a freezer to scoop ice cream.

“Vanilla chai and chocolate hazelnut,” Adam tells him when he places a cup in front of him. “We close at 9.”

John hangs around outside while Adam closes shop. He figures by now Sherri is gone, so they head back to the motel. He’s relieved when he opens the door and it’s just Jesse watching basic cable and eating crappy North Carolina pizza. He offers the leftovers and scoots over on the bed for them to join.

“So, Adam,” he begins, and John realizes he should have prepared Adam for this. Sure, he had filled him in on them making up (not that it had been much of a fight), but he never mentioned that Jesse wanted to meet him for more than a quick second at a movie night.

“Jesse,” Adam counters. He holds his stare while he finishes his pizza (everything but the crust), and John realizes that they’re either going to get along fantastically or butt heads about every possible thing.

8.

John and Jesse try for another day to themselves. Without Sherri there, Jesse would be the third wheel, a position John’s not sure he would take too kindly to being, and Adam has to babysit and work anyway. The morning is spent on the beach, taking in the sun before it gets too hot for the day. There’s an arcade on the boardwalk, full of kids trying to win tickets to get obnoxiously large stuffed animals, and they spend their afternoon there. They’re pretty terrible at skee ball and that moving basketball game, but John doesn’t mind. He’s grateful just to spend time with Jesse and feel like nothing has changed between them. He was expecting this revelation about his sexuality to turn into an earth-shattering thing - and maybe it will one day, if he ever has to come out to his parents - but at least he knows he has Jesse through it.

“So I was thinking about going to a club tonight,” Jesse says over dinner at a burger joint. They picked a random place on the boardwalk, choosing to eat somewhere other than the diner for once. It’s the kind of place families stop in after a long day at the beach, and it’s crowded with kids crying from the heat and just being tired in general.

“Sure,” John agrees, even though he’s not sure if he wants to go to a club. He was alright with the bar the other day, but clubs usually involve dancing and that’s not really anything anybody wants or needs to see.

“You don’t have to go.” John is going to take him up on that, he thinks. Maybe he’ll meet Adam at the ice cream parlor and they can hang out. “I’ll be gone for two or three hours. After nine or so,” Jesse says, giving way more detail than necessary.

It takes a moment or two, but John catches on. Jesse is graciously clearing out of the hotel room the way John did when Sherri was leaving. He can’t believe how cool Jesse is being about this whole thing. He even goes so far as to suggest they get ice cream after dinner, and John takes the opportunity to invite Adam back to the motel when he gets done with work.

True to his word, Jesse leaves the hotel a little after nine. He waggles his eyebrows and then chucks a handful of condoms at John. Throwing things at John has become a trend this vacation, apparently.

“Be safe, Johnny boy,” Jesse teases.

John flips him off.

With the room to himself, John sort of freaks out. He throws the condoms back to Jesse’s side of the room and straightens up the mess of worn clothing that has accumulated in a lump next to his suitcase. He brushes his teeth and changes into pajama pants and a tee shirt. He pushes the covers on the bed into some semblance of “made” and then flicks the TV on to kill time. It’s not like he hasn’t spent time alone with Adam before; he’s spent the night at his house. But this was planned, and with Jesse suggesting something, he feels like there’s an expectation now.

It’s almost ten by the time there’s a knock on the door. John checks in the peephole to see a distorted version of Adam standing there.

“Hey,” he says, opening the door and smiling. Adam is still in his work shirt, cap backwards on his head, and there’s a white paper bag in his hand.

“Hello,” Adam responds. He steps out of the way so John can shut the door behind him, and then he kisses him quickly. “I brought one of my favorites.” Adam holds up the bag, which unsurprisingly contains ice cream and two spoons. “Vanilla Coke.”

John finds himself agreeing with Adam on that. It’s a vanilla ice cream base with coke syrup swirled in. Adam is firm that it has to be the Coca-Cola brand too, because Pepsi is shit.

“Can I tell you something?” Adam says, licking his spoon. John can’t tell if Adam’s intentionally being a tease or if his mind is just wired dirty.

“Go ahead.” John cleans up the empty ice cream container, his eye catching sight of the condoms on Jesse’s bed. He’d forgotten to actually hide them.

“I recognized you the second day you walked in. I was like ‘oh, there’s that guy that ordered just vanilla.’ And I wanted to make fun of you cause we have all these flavors and you were like ‘uhhhh vanilla.’”

“I got distracted by you,” John admits, feeling the tips of his ears go warm. He’s a little embarrassed to admit that. “I should’ve been looking at the flavors and I got caught up looking at you.” He’s digging himself a deeper hole and he knows it.

Luckily for him, Adam isn’t put off by that. It might be something he can save for later to tease him with, but for the time being he just leans in and kisses John. And Adam doesn’t waste any time; he practically grabs John by the collar to pull him close, his free hand slipping up the back of his shirt.

“You smell like ice cream,” John says against Adam’s neck, and he feel Adam’s laughter against his lips. Adam shoves him off, pulling his shirt off and tossing it aside. To even the score, John sheds his own shirt and leans back into kiss Adam. His fingers are already wandering to Adam’s pants.

“So I saw those condoms.” Adam whispers it into John’s ear, and John tenses. He wants to pull away quickly and explain that he didn’t mean anything by them, that he’d meant to hide them, that Jesse had left them out because he thinks he’s funny. “Before buying me dinner? John, really.”

“Jesse -” He starts, ready to explain, so Adam doesn’t think he’s some sort of creep. Adam just shakes his head and starts to unbutton John’s jeans.

9.

John wakes up to a bony elbow in his side. Adam’s sleeping almost impossibly close to him, and they’re tangled up in the covers. Jesse’s asleep on his bed, the condoms kicked off and on to the floor. It’d been late when Jesse finally got back to the room, announcing his presence with a loud knocking. At that point, Adam and John were already watching Law and Order reruns, and Adam had called his dad to let him know he was spending the night with a friend.

John twists away from Adam, finding his own boxers on the floor near the bed and pulling them on. Most of his clothes are in a sloppy pile near his suitcase. He has to start packing at some point, considering they’re leaving in a little bit. He’s trying not to think too much about it; he’d been a little unsure of this vacation, but now he’s reluctant to let it end. Adam groans with his eyes closed and blindly reaches out for John.

“Breakfast?” John asks, finding Adam’s underwear and dropping them on his head. Jesse is dead to the world in the next bed, and John is pretty sure he was trashed when he got in the previous night.

After they get dressed and try unsuccessfully to rouse Jesse from his sleep, they head out the door. Adam’s called in sick to work for the day so he can spend it with John. It’s the elephant in the room, John leaving in the morning. Neither of them have really discussed John leaving since that day at Adam’s house, and John isn’t sure how to bring up it up. Maybe they’re just both pretending it isn’t happening.

The diner is surprisingly packed for a morning. There are families eating before they head to the beach, and the counter is completely full of people grabbing bites before work. John and Adam have to wait a few minutes before they’re seated in the back.

“I have to pack when we get back,” John says, finally breaking the silence. Adam is playing with the sugar and Equal packets, not making eye contact with John.

It feels like forever until the waitress comes over and they place their orders.

“Do you want me to stick around?” Adam asks. He peels his straw wrapper off without blowing it in John’s direction.

“I mean, yeah.” John kicks at Adam’s feet from under the table, wanting him to just look at him. He doesn’t want this to feel like it’s the end. He knows Adam is used to people leaving, that Adam expects it, but he doesn’t want to give up so easily.

The rest of breakfast is the same. Adam is incredibly quiet and distant, and John’s wondering why he bothered to call out sick to work if he was going to be like this. He doesn’t bring it up; he spends his breakfast focused so intently on his pancakes and scrambled eggs, pretending like they’re incredibly delicious instead of a little rubbery. He pays the check when it comes, and they slip out of the diner without saying much.

Jesse is still asleep when they get back to the hotel room, but John doesn’t feel any pressure to stay quiet. If Jesse wakes up a little hungover, then he did that to himself. And he’ll have to get to packing soon enough, since Jesse’s half of the room is much worse than his. His suitcase looks like it threw up; he has shirts and shorts and his bathing suit everywhere. Adam sits on the bed, looking down at John who is quietly folding things so they fit a little better into his own suitcase.

“Are you going to say anything?” Adam finally asks, getting John’s attention. He looks at him perched there and shakes his head no. “Don’t be a shit, John.”

“You’re the one looking like somebody kicked your dog all morning,” John counters. He gets up and sits down next to Adam. He feels like there’s a heart to heart coming on, which should be weird considering Jesse is asleep in the next bed, but John knows that Jesse can sleep through anything.

“I mean, you’re leaving and we haven’t like, talked about it. You just came back here and started packing. You trying to leave faster?” Adam is staring at John’s suitcase, which is half-packed at this point. It’s looking a lot better than it had before he started, at least.

“I’m leaving. I can’t stay.” John doesn’t know what else they’re supposed to talk about. He told him he wanted to see him again. They’ve exchanged phone numbers and mailing addresses. They’ve talked loosely about meeting up in the future at a show or John coming down in the fall for a weekend. The flights aren’t terribly expensive from Long Island; John will put in more hours at his shitty part time job if he has to.

“I know that,” Adam says, flopping back on the bed and letting out a sigh. “Guess I was hoping there’d be some weird turn of events and you could. The car wouldn’t start. Somebody poked holes in the gas tank. I could always hide in the back seat.”

John laughs a little and falls back so he’s laying next to Adam. He pulls him closer and promises that he’ll write and call. Neither of them are under the impression that they’re boyfriends and this thing will remain exclusive (not like Jesse, who has sworn he won’t be dating anybody else because his heart belongs to Sherri. He’d mentioned for the hundredth time going to school in Texas, and John’s pretty sure he might actually wind up following through on that), but John still wants to stay friends with him.

Jesse wakes up past noon and throws all of his things in his suitcase calling it “packed.” Before they head out to eat, they pack up the car and check out of the hotel. It’s weird, the idea of leaving the Outer Banks. John had gotten so used to waking up, heading to the beach and then to the ice cream parlor. He’d also gotten used to kissing Adam and the way Adam was constantly flirting with him by way of quick touches.

Jesse makes gagging sounds when they say goodbye. They’re standing impossibly close to each other, and Jesse is watching from the driver’s side of the car. It’s a little embarrassing to have him so close while John is trying to say goodbye. Adam glares daggers at him once or twice before focusing back on John.

“You ever see True Romance? With Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater? Brad Pitt’s in it too, what a babe.” John rolls his eyes at him and then shakes his head. He mentally adds it to his list of things he needs to look into because Adam’s mentioned it.

“I’ll get it,” John promises, and Adam smiles at him.

“You better. Then write me a letter about it,” Adam says. He pulls John close and kisses him. “You’re so cool.”

***

John tries to keep his promises. He calls Adam almost the moment he gets home, filling him in on the car ride and Jesse’s obsession with moving to Texas. He only hangs up when Michelle complains that he’s been on the phone all day. He watches True Romance and writes Adam, even though he wasn’t sure he got the movie exactly. He closes his letters with ‘you’re so cool.’

When school starts up, John gets so caught up in his homework that the letters take a back seat. And then the phone calls turn from weekly to every other week. He doesn’t mean for it to happen, but he gets so busy with work and school. Even his phone calls with Jesse up in Albany are short (he’s still talking about transferring to Texas).

John hardly notices when Adam stops writing letters back.

Finals are brutal for John. It’s a bunch of studying at the library, staying up until 3 am with his face in his text book. He’s never been a strong student, so he has to work for his grades. Jesse’s coming home when his are done, and it’s the only thing keeping John going sometimes.

After finals, John and Jesse spend almost all their time together. Jesse’s transferring to Texas for the spring semester, and John can’t believe that’s actually happening. They go into the city at night with their friend Eddie, who has started about a hundred hardcore bands that have never really gone anywhere. It’s fun going to see his bands and all the other ones from the area.

They’re at some hole in the wall venue. It’s a tiny place with sticky floors that John swears have never been cleaned, and the bass is too loud. Eddie’s talking excitedly, most of it John can’t understand, because they’re opening for a band from Jersey that’s apparently pretty good, and he’s hoping it helps his band gain some traction. Or at least a bass player.

John and Jesse spend most of the night hanging around the bar, watching mostly for Eddie’s band. They buy him a drink when he gets off stage, and Eddie tries once again to convince them to join his band. Jesse might’ve contemplated it once, since it had always been a dream of his, and John can see him coming back to it once his plans for Texas fall apart. There’s no way in hell that’s going to work.

The singer takes the stage and introduces themselves as Lifetime from just across the river in Jersey. John nearly drops his drink. Adam would give anything to be there, and he remembers that he’s been meaning to call him for the past month. Tomorrow, he makes a mental note. He’s definitely going to call him tomorrow. The singer says they’ve been working on a new record, and John files that away too. Adam will be impressed that he knows something for once.

John isn’t expecting to actually see Adam there.

At first, he thinks he’s seeing things. He does a very comical double take that gets Jesse’s attention, but he shrugs it off and sets his drink on the bar.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he shouts over the music. He doesn’t quite get the appeal of Lifetime. He’s more into Modest Mouse and Radiohead, stuff a bit more mellow than this.

By the time he crosses the venue and gets to where Adam is standing, he wishes he’d grabbed another drink. Adam is so entranced by the band on stage, practically screaming along to every word. His hair is a little longer, and he looks a little taller. He’s not sure that’s even possible. John spends the rest of the set standing creepily close to Adam, just watching him watch his favorite band. He’s not about to get in the way.

“Hey,” he yells, once they’ve finished their encore. His ears are ringing and he’s not even sure Adam is going to be able to hear him. He wants to get outside where the air is cool because it feels impossibly stuffy inside.

When Adam looks at him, a range of emotions fly across his face.

“You said you’d call,” Adam says, eyes taking him in. John can feel his stare, and he wants to shrink away.

“I know.” John doesn’t try to make excuses because he knows he fucked up, and he doesn’t argue that Adam also didn’t make much of an effort to call. “Let me buy you a drink.”

Adam follows him back to the bar where Jesse and Eddie are. Adam must’ve been there early because he instantly strikes up a conversation with Eddie about how great his band is. Jesse just looks at John a little shocked. Of all the people to run into at a show, it’s Adam. He lives hundreds of miles away, and there he is in this shitty little venue.

“Come outside with me,” Adam says, after he’s done talking to Eddie. John’s pretty sure he caught bits and pieces of Eddie trying to convince Adam to play in his band, even though he’s never heard him play before. All he needed to know is that Adam can sort of play bass.

Outside, Adam lights up a cigarette, and John hadn’t realized he’d smoked. Maybe it was a new habit since he’d gotten back to New York. It had been five months since he’d last seen him. Adam stops in front of a car that makes Jesse’s piece of shit look like a luxury vehicle. The North Carolina plates give it away as Adam’s, which explains how he got to New York in the first place. John feels oddly proud because he knew that’s what Adam was spending his whole summer working for; he got his car, and he got up to see his favorite band.

John leaves with Adam, who has a shitty motel across the river in Jersey. Jesse waggles his eyebrows but promises to pick him up at the train station the next day.

There’s no pretense this time. When Adam drops John off at the train the next morning, there are no promises of calls and letters. They say goodbye, and John expects that to be it.

***

In the spring, Jesse comes back from Texas. He and Sherri break up, and John has to pretend to be incredibly surprised. Jesse’s drops out of school and moves back into his parents house; he talks about actually starting a band again, which John sees as a very welcome change. Eddie eagerly invites them to a show because he thinks he found somebody for his band that’s going to actually stick around (Eddie’s band seems to have a revolving door of members, and he’s always having to put somebody new in).

Honestly, John shouldn’t be surprised when Jesse’s new bass player turns out to be Adam. He looks great on stage, like it’s where he belongs. John buys him a drink after the show, and Adam actually looks happy to see him.

“I was hoping you’d be here,” Adam says, taking the drink.

“You could’ve invited me. You have my number.”

“Well, I lost it when I moved.” John can’t blame him for that because it’s a logical explanation, though he hadn’t even known Adam moved.

“Give me your new address.” John grabs a napkin from the bar and asks the girl next to him if she’s got a pen in her purse.

When Adam hands him back the napkin, he knows he shouldn’t be surprised that he’s looking at Eddie’s address.


End file.
